World Cup Soccer

I’ll admit i’m not a soccer fan (The constant fake injury, rolling around in agony only to get up and sprint back into play once the foul has been called) drives me crazy!

BUT the USA vs Iran game yesterday was crazy suspenseful! and I like how goal differential/yellow cards plays into the final pool play seeding and adds TONS of drama to games otherwise that would be meaningless….The Poland vs Argentina game right now is crazy! Messi is a wizard with a soccer ball on his feet…

I’ll watch it every 4 years…the USA hosts it in 3.5 years….

IDK a thing about soccer but I have heard there is some hype about the US this year. Perhaps not to win it all, but at least they made the final 16.

I’m like others here. I do not follow or watch Soccer much at all. But I do tend to follow it a little during the world cup. Watching a game for that long to only see a score or two, and sometimes no score at all is way to slow for me. the US woman have had some success in recent years, but not the Men. I remember a time when they said that soccer would become more popular to watch in the us than football or Baseball. I don’t see that happening anytime soon. If the US men could make a serious run here, maybe they would gain a few more fans. Maybe they can.

Unless it soccer mom I’m not watching.

Saw an interesting meme on how to fix soccer:
1. Field is too big, shrink it.
2. Too many players on the field. Limit it to 3 forwards, 2 defensemen, and a goalie
3. Players should get to come in and out whenever they want. Don’t stop the game
4. Shrink the goal
5. Ice everywhere

Haven’t watched any of the World Cup, and don’t plan to. Hope the US does well. I’m surprised there aren’t full on protests and meltdown mode by more people given the human rights record of Qatar, Taliban profiting as a contractor and basically slave labor building the stadiums.

fishthumper wrote:

I remember a time when they said that soccer would become more popular to watch in the us than football or Baseball. I don’t see that happening anytime soon

Have you seen youth fields in the fall around here? Soccer is taking off in the USA, especially with all the CTE info coming out (Yes, I know about soccer headers and CTE too)

I absolutley agree there’s not enough offense to keep a typical American audience interested (myself included) but Soccer is gaining major momentum in the US, to the demise of youth football and baseball…

This current USA mens team is built for the NEXT World Cup that’s hosted in North America, so whatever they do in this tourney is just gravy at this point…

BigWerm wrote:

1. Field is too big, shrink it.
2. Too many players on the field. Limit it to 3 forwards, 2 defensemen, and a goalie
3. Players should get to come in and out whenever they want. Don’t stop the game
4. Shrink the goal
5. Ice everywhere

Saw this on Twitter and the best part was all the people legitimately arguing the points

it’s just hard for me to get past all the flopping and embellishing they do. it’d be laughable if they weren’t doing it seriously. maybe I’m too used to hockey where a guy can take a puck in the mouth and not miss his next shift

I used to play soccer (among other sports) and so I’ll typically watch the World Cup and Olympics if I can.

I will say that the embellishments for fouls need to get cleaned up. However, if you have not played you are probably underestimating how bad some of the hits hurt. They basically wear zero pads other than shins. I got my face split open in high school taking a bicycle kick to the face.

In all I’d say it’s a good sport especially to play. It’s boring to watch sometimes, I think they should adjust some of rules for offense kinda like they did for hockey a few years back.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Have you seen youth fields in the fall around here? Soccer is taking off in the USA, especially with all the CTE info coming out (Yes, I know about soccer headers and CTE too)

There is a massive tournament in Blaine every year isnt there? With teams from around the world.

Just let us know how much time is left in the match and quit running the clocks backwards.

If the US won the whole thing it wouldn’t matter to me. If they loss their first match it wouldn’t bother me. I’d rather watch a NBA game.

There’s countries that care about soccer, and there is countries that put people on the moon

I’d rather watch paint dry.

Personally I could care less about putting people on the moon. What a waste of resources.

I can’t state how much I hate soccer. Obviously I hope the US wins… Soccer will never take a big move in the US because our best athletes ALWAYS choose regular sports.

I know several boys the last few years in high school that gave up on football and walked right on the varsity soccer field….aka left over football players are better than kids who’ve played their whole childhood. So while soccer certainly is huge but it’s still the sport for kids that can’t play real sports ….. at least in the US anyway.

Maybe their soccer team sucked.

while soccer certainly is huge but it’s still the sport for kids that can’t play real sports

Joe-Winter=Dad of the year award.

We watched it at the bar- the first half anyway, then went and played a real sport like racket ball. The guy who scored the goal must’ve really took one in the giblets. He didn’t appear to be faking it. Ouch.

As others have stated, I rarely watch any soccer, ever. I do occasionally watch some of the World Cup when the USA is playing though. I find it to be incredibly boring because of the lack of goals. I will admit that I don’t fully understand the strategy of the game at times with plays like free kicks, corner kicks, etc. The diving gets to be ridiculous at times too. When they show a replay, you can clearly see that some of them barely even get touched and they act like they just got shot in the back.

I’m not going to go as far as calling it a fake sport. These guys are in good shape and their endurance is very high to be running and jogging for long periods of time without much of a break. There’s clearly an advantage to being fast and lean for soccer players.

I looked up the odds for teams to win and the favorites are Brazil, Argentina, and several western European countries.

Here’s a funny video from years ago that mocked a European team “practing” their injury/diving routines…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20XuPlde-Z0

When i’ve seen the issue of diving/embellishment discussed with real soccer fans, there’s always a smile and a wink, so it’s obviously known to be a problem, but they feel its just part of the game… This and lack of scoring/action plays is why the American audience hasn’t taken to it…

The NHL has an embellishment penalty they call when they feel the player overreacted on purpose to get the penalty call, it would be nice for Soccer to adopt a similar type of rule (or card in soccer terms) but there would likely be no players left on the field after the first 10 minutes…

I guess if I’m a bad dad because soccer sucks serious donkey D!ck….. then I guess so.

Dutchboy wrote:

I I’d rather watch a NBA game.

Hold on here. Lets not get carried away !!! That is another sport I just can not get into watching. I’d much rather watch the 2 minutes of highlights on ESPN each morning than to waste the time watching a whole game.

fishthumper wrote:

Hold on here. Lets not get carried away !!! That is another sport I just can not get into watching.

Anyone who calls soccer boring obviously hasn’t been watching any MLB since the advent of the >3 hour game with single at-bats also stretching to record times. Zzzzzzzzz. It will make you turn the channel to watch soccer because it’s a damn thrill ride compared to Major League Slowball.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

When i’ve seen the issue of diving/embellishment discussed with real soccer fans, there’s always a smile and a wink, so it’s obviously known to be a problem, but they feel its just part of the game…

The art of the flop is just part of the game. Not sure why Americans get so bent out of shape about this. You want to see flopping in an American sport, just watch the NFL and college football receivers trying to constantly sell the pass interference on every play. Obviously, it got so bad in the NHL that that league finally did something about it, but before the embellishment penalty, the NHL certainly was pushing into soccer’s territory as far as flopping attempts per game.

I find it hard to get into this World Cup because it’s being played in a craphole country with a worker rights abuse history and they didn’t change their stripes after FIFA gave them the cup. It was the same with watching last year’s Olympics in China with the nuclear power plant post-apocalyptic backgrounds and lack of any real snow at the winter games.

I agree Grouse……how any Soccer fan could ever find a baseball game boring is beyond me.

I’m not in the know but what percentage of flopping is to get additional stoppage time? If you’re up 1-0 do you flop?

I generally like to spend some time watching the world cup but haven’t watched any this year. Like a lot of people I find the ball control strategy to generate one or two shots for a 1-0 win boring to watch. I’m talking about some Spanish teams in the past. There are some teams that play an aggressive style. Teams like Germany or the Netherlands can be fun to watch.

There is truth about the MLB games grinding to a halt in the 5th or 6th inning. Pitchers throwing 30+ pitches for a half inning.

Today’s World Cup games are just as bonkers as yesterday, BOTH world soccer powers Spain & Germany could get booted in the next 15 minutes!

update – Germany has been knocked out

I prefer Womens soccer.

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buschman wrote:

I prefer Womens soccer.

Alex Morgan has kept me from changing the channel once or twice when they’re on TV…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>buschman wrote:</div>
I prefer Womens soccer.

Alex Morgan has kept me from changing the channel once or twice when they’re on TV…

She is a hot mama